Horner wins Tour of Basque Country after blitzing TT

American Chris Horner blitzed the final time trial in the Tour of the Basque Country to snatch the overall victory from Alejandro Valverde, and to give his RadioShack squad its first big win of the season.

Going into the final stage of the Spanish ProTour race, Horner was just one second adrift of leader Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) and knew he had to put everything into his ride to secure the victory.

Horner tackled the distinctly lumpy 22 kilometre course perfectly, beating Valverde by eight seconds on the line and giving him seven seconds’ advantage over the Spaniard in the general classification.

It’s Horner’s first win of the 2010 season for his new US-based squad RadioShack, created by seven-times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. It will be a welcome win for Horner, who suffered a torrid season last year when he broke his leg at the Giro d’Italia in May and crashed out of the Vuelta a Espana in September.

Ireland’s Daniel Martin (Garmin-Transitions) rode strongly all week to place 15th in the final overall classification, three minutes and 30 seconds down on Horner.

Horner’s win over Valverde saves the embarrassment of a banned rider winning a ProTour event. Valverde is currently serving a two-year suspension from competition in Italy. His appeal was recently thrown out by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Union Cycliste Internationale subsequently issued a statement saying that it was pursuing a worldwide ban for Valverde.

IMHO the standings would look better with the number 2 in brackets, with the name in bright red with DOPER in caps next to it. Then subtract one from all the positions below.

Rob

Those of us who follow US Cycling in Oregon have known about Chris Horner for a long time. It’s great to see him win a major European stage race… This has got to be sweet vindication for a guy who’s seen a lot of ups and downs in his pro career. Go Horner!